Tenth anniversary edition

Asia NOW Paris Asian Art Fair returns to Monnaie de Paris during Paris art week October 17–20 to celebrate its tenth edition.

More than just an art fair, Asia NOW is both a curated platform with a selection of international galleries presenting artists from across Asia and its diaspora, and an ambitious public program curated by guest curators featuring commissioned site-specific installations, performances, conversations and artist workshops.

70 participating galleries
This edition features Statements presentations by new and returning galleries featuring solo or duo show by artists from 28 territories across Asia, from Central Asia to the Asia-Pacific region, including West, South, Southeast and East Asia. Newcomers include Esther Schipper (Berlin / Paris / Seoul) Sabrina Amrani (Madrid), Carlier Gebauer (Berlin / Madrid), Zilberman (Istanbul/ Berlin/ Miami), WINDOW PROJECT (Tbilisi), Kaikai Kiki Gallery (Tokyo), Nao Masaki (Nagoya), Side 2 (Tokyo), Shrine Empire (Delhi), Lkham Gallery (Ulan Bator), to name a few.

Returning participants include Perrotin (Paris/Dubai/New York/Hong Kong/Seoul/Tokyo/ Shanghai), Galleria Continua (San Gimignano /Beijing /Habana /Roma/ Sao Paulo/ Paris/ Dubai), Gana (Seoul), Yeo Workshop (Singapore), The Drawing Room (Manila), Nika Project Space (Dubai, Paris), Galerie Marguo (Paris), Mou Projects (Hong Kong), Gallery Bao (Paris).

However Asia is seen not only as a geography but also as a methodology, with a multi-centric approach that celebrates global Asias for their communal spirit and collective practices.

Celebrating its tenth anniversary, Asia NOW presents “Ceremony,” curated by the international curatorial collective Radicants, founded by Nicolas Bourriaud, the newly appointed Artistic Director of the Gwangju Biennale. An exhibition blending the sacred and the mundane from culinary rituals to the communal exuberance of festivals, throughout the entire site of Monnaie de Paris.

The commemoration of ancestral wisdom serves to question traditions and power dynamics. Rituals, while reinforcing social structures, also have the potential to transform them.  The 22 artists invited by Radicants explore the unifying force of community rituals through diverse practices. Charwei Tsai’s offerings, and Yohan Han’s choreographic performances highlight the intersection of ritual and daily life.

Through their works,  Marcos Kueh, Özlem Altın, and Darius Dolatyari-Dolatdoust revisit and reinterpret ceremonies, addressing themes of identity, loss, and cultural fusion. Leelee Chan, Tomoko Sauvage, and Trevor Yeung, among others, incorporate ancient and modern materials into sculptures and installations provoking a dialogue on harmony, chaos, and social connectivity.

The exhibition emphasizes merriment and social connection as vital to processing loss and trauma, illustrating how art can foster empathy, resilience, and more interconnected existence. To expand this discourse Zadie Xa, Minja Gu, Ming Wong, Isaac Chong Wai, and Nil Yalter each bring unique perspectives on identity, ritual, and cultural exchange. 

Commissioned installations

Britto Arts Trust, a collective of artists from Bangladesh that participated in Documenta 15 and at  the 2024 Diriyah Contemporary Art Biennale, has been commissioned to present a site-specific installation which  invites visitors into an ecological, social, and diasporic space shaped by the Bengali palan and pakghor. The palan, a traditional kitchen garden often tended by women and children, supports the pakghor, a family kitchen that also serves as a communal living room.

Sumayya Vally, founder and principal of Counterspace, will exhibit a renewed iteration of Calling for Rain ceremony, first presented at the Dhaka Art Summit in 2023. This site-specific installation, commissioned by Asia Now, is curated by Kathy Alliou in collaboration with  the MTO Sufi Art and Culture Museum, which will program a series of daily performances activating the vessel according to its Sufi spirit. Bringing together elements of the cycle of life, water, soil and fire, it features fired and unfired clay jars as a circular space, where the temporal and the material merge during Sama ceremonies. Through the natural action of time, climate and human interactions, the installation dissolves, transforms and regenerates. 

Sumayya Vally made history as the youngest architect to design the Serpentine Pavilion. In 2022, she was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum and featured in the TIME100 Next list.

Performances & activations
Nikhil Chopra, Uriel Barthélemy, Bishwajit Goswami, Hamid Shams, Eisa Jocson, and others will present visceral rituals incorporating sound, fire, storytelling, and emotion.

Asia Now continues to foster collaborative networks, enhancing creative dialogues, site-specific research, and global visibility. This edition’s video screening program, curated by Anushka Rajendran of Prameya Art Foundation, will showcase works from the Sharjah Art Foundation archive.